Covid-19 & Anxiety

Join the club! Over the last two years many writers and artists I've spoken to have had mental blocks; no motivation; lack of inspiration due to the pandemic. I, like many of them, thought that since I wasn't working and I would be stuck at home during a lockdown I would have more time to focus on writing my stories, maybe learn piano, take up painting a masterpiece at last. I would be so creative!

Then anxiety kicked in. Anxiety because of Covid-19 and thinking of my vulnerable family members- how to protect them all. Anxiety surrounding grocery shopping, social distancing and mask wearing. The thing about anxiety is that it never truly goes away which leads to more anxiety. I couldn't focus on my stories. I often asked myself: who would want to read about a dystopian tale when we were all living in one? My motivation plummeted. Nothing was interesting to me anymore. I often spent days watching YouTube and Netflix and watching the cases growing and falling and growing again on the news. I couldn't summon the motivation to read books in my to-be-read pile. I couldn't even read some comics I had been gifted. Despair was eating away at my creativity. I lost faith in humanity because people where I live didn't care about protecting others; their actions were selfish and harmful, they thought everything was being blown out of proportion and that is wasn't all that bad. It didn't matter if they got Covid-19; they would survive it and their caring stopped there. They disregarded the rules and guidelines and welcomed anyone to challenge them.

It was a dark time and I still haven't fully recovered from it. I've only now begun to slowly ease into reading long stories or books and I have read the comics gifted to me because my brain is just burnt-out from anxiety and despair. I am no longer comfortable with people invading my personal space (I never really was comfortable with people doing that but anxiety has brought it to the surface). They keep saying on the radio that people were being kinder because of the pandemic but the reality I still face every day is a contradiction. They jeer, they spit, they invade my personal space. People are much ruder or else my eyes were opened because of the pandemic and they were just always rude. It often discouraged me from going back to the shops for a couple of days after or until the groceries ran out. It made me feel awful and lonely. I often felt that the world wasn't for me anymore and that I wanted to die. Even my friends didn't seem to have any interest in maintaining contact after the first few game nights on Zoom though I suspected they were going through the same thing. I found myself having to always reach out and start a conversation, which just became exhausting. It still happens these days where I have to send a message or phone them to get some connection because they don't call or message until I start. It got very lonely and tiring. Then I got the worst migraine in my life and I thought that I was truly dying. I had to adjust to a new diet devoid of wheat, any pig-related meat, fast food, fried food, dairy, red and purple vegetables which was upsetting.

One saving grace was that I found myself again in nature. I bought some bird feeders and some birdseed and I began to study the birds that flew into my garden. I saw birds other than the regular Blackbird, Robin Redbreast and Starlings. I found a book of garden birds and studied both the new and old. From my brief excursions to the shops for groceries, I noticed the Crows on the street were all different. I now know them as Jackdaw, Hooded Crow and Rook. I studied the Pigeons that visited my garden: Wood Pigeons and Collared Doves. Bird-watching gave my tired brain something to focus on. The fresh air in the garden was a nice change from being indoors all the time. I even studied the flowers I had in the garden for years and never thought about before. I downloaded apps to investigate bird calls and to identify the plants. I took walks in the marshes to see Mute Swans, Coots and Moor-Hens. The sound of water lapping is soothing and the fresh air helps with anxiety attacks as I was able to take great lungfuls of it to calm down.

Another hobby that helped to occupy my mind was to bake. I started making Muffins, Scones, Parfaits, Fruit Crumbles, Pasta Bakes. I made and baked Pumpkin Pie for Halloween and Mince Pies for Christmas. I tried out new recipes for One Pan Chicken and Lentil Salads and Mushroom Risottos. Once I kept my mind busy I was okay though it was still swinging between moods. I have anger issues related to anxiety and traumatic experiences revolving abusive relatives so my mind needed to be occupied. Blind Wave on YouTube is a group of reactors who watch the sort of movies and tv shows I would so they got me through a lot of the lockdowns and are still helping me today because I am still not feeling safe around people. I have trust issues too.

It sucks not being able to talk to people about this stuff and when I do I don't want to be going on and on about it because they don't know what to do about it. I feel like I'm stuck in a circle! I can't write, I can't get rid of my anxiety and I'm still learning to live with it.